Shooting colored lights,HELP

[RalfP.I.]

Ahoy mateys! I'm making the most awesome fan film ever,with action figures. I don't want to give away too many details yet since it probably won't be on the internet 'til some time in 2009.

Much of the scenes will have colored LED lights covered in fake Halloween spider webs in the dark. My problem is that I can't seem to get colored lights to look as rich on camera as in real life. The blues and reds look ok,but the greens look kinda pale and closer to yellow than the beautiful candy green I see with my real eyes. Also,the purples look more pink.

I just bought my DVX100B in November,the first camera I've had since I was 14,so I guess I don't really know what I'm doing,but I'm learning. I've read Barry Green's DVX Book,I've learned the controls,and I've been experimenting. If I can't get it to look better,the picture I've been getting is still awesome and will work. I just wanted to know if it is possible to get it to look more like real life with the DVX100B or is this just how colored lights have to look on camera?

Also,I should note that I shoot in 60i,not progressive,but I tried adjusting color temp and other things in both modes and progressive doesn't get me any closer to the colors I want. Thanks for any suggestions anyone might have.

 

[Joshua Provost]

Hm, do you have any information on the native color temperature of these LED's? Probably the color temp is off, but it could be tough to set it properly given these LED's.

If these were normal lights with colored gels, you would remove the gels, white balance to the naked lights, and then put the gels back on. Unfortunately, it sounds like you can't do that with these lights.

See what you can find on them. You may have to use one of the WB presets and adjust the COLOR TEMP scene file control. Also, check out the MATRIX setting, since each setting emphasizes different colors. And the CHROMA control to control overall saturation (which is usually oversaturated by default, but it sounds like you feel it's the other way around).